


The Electronic Memory of a Late-Night Smile

by decaf_kitty



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Space, Engineers, Fighter Pilots, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 18:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19068403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decaf_kitty/pseuds/decaf_kitty
Summary: Kakashi Hatake is a skilled fighter pilot. He has the famous Sharingan wired into his face. He is a team captain and a mad genius.He is also injured and alone inside a broken space ship.So, the Sharingan reminds him about the time he made Iruka Umino, Konoha's feisty engineer, smile.He could save the whole galaxy if he could just see Iruka again.





	The Electronic Memory of a Late-Night Smile

Bank hard right – dodge blaster beam – fly _Lightning Cutter_ backwards – slam down the shields – spark up the mimic machine – duplicate the debris field that Zabuza used earlier – 

Now the hard part: trust the kids…

\- watch Team Seven strike there, there, there! good, Sakura! very good! - 

– finally neutralize Zabuza’s ship with an electromagnetic pulse, and then ready him and his protégé for the Leaf Clan Authorities!

Kakashi’s coms filled with the near-hysterical laughter of Team Seven. He was happy for them, but he was also relieved they weren’t in _Lightning Cutter_ with him. Sweat soaked his piloting attire; he’d cracked his helmet on the ship’s ceiling. He wasn’t feeling up to snuff to put it mildly. He hadn’t known about Zabuza’s flank-guard: the kid turned out to be freakishly talented. It was a real shame that he’d been sucked into space. But the boy’s death was unfortunately necessary for Team Seven to understand the grisly consequences of dog-fighting in their own ships after riding in his for so long. He wasn’t sure Zabuza was alive in his wrecked machine, but the L.C.A. would reclaim everything for scrap and intel, so he waited around for their arrival in this far-away sector of the galaxy. 

With a short digital farewell to the kids through the coms, Kakashi sent his team of ragtag underdogs back to the docking bay, back to their Basics teacher and L.C.A.’s chief engineer.

He knew Iruka would be thrilled to pieces to have them home after their first real mission. What a worrywart that man was… 

Resting back in _Lightning Cutter’s_ cushy pilot-chair, Kakashi utilized the Sharingan’s robotic memory bank as he waited on the recovery unit. He’d long since evolved from having to direct his Sharingan verbally, which was rather impressive considering only Uchiha used the device. He’d certainly struggled with it when he was younger. But nowadays Kakashi was just as skilled as any blood-member in the elite mechanic family. 

He resented the “Friend Killer Kakashi” nickname – although, props for alliteration, you clever psychos – but he was privately a bit proud of “Kakashi of the Sharingan.” Even though Obito had zipped off into outer space the very second after he’d dug the wires out of his eye and shoved the device into the team’s shared delivery port, Kakashi had still managed to discover most of the Sharingan’s secrets.

Mad genius! That’s what they used to call him. But now three hormonal teenagers whined “Kakashi-sensei” day and night. Ugh, what had happened to him. How far had he fallen in the name of duty to Konoha.

Avoiding the new feeling of responsibility blanketing his shoulders, Kakashi instead replayed the time Iruka Umino had screamed in his face. It happened right after Kakashi announced he was taking the kids on their first in-sector advanced military mission. 

His brain, both lovingly and hatefully wired with the Sharingan, showed Iruka’s scarred face darkening and his right hand swinging sharp towards Kakashi’s partially-bare cheek.

Of course, Kakashi had caught Iruka’s wrist before any damage was done, but – ha! 

He hadn’t imagined Iruka would knee him in the groin.

Although it was a year later, he was still surprised by the next part of the memory: Naruto coming to rescue his sorry ass curled up in a ball on the metal bay floor. His dead sensei’s son was crazy brave, stupidly so, but it had worked, easing down Iruka from murder. Somehow Naruto had even convinced Iruka to let Team Seven start taking missions off-sector.

The Sharingan automatically provided Kakashi with the follow-up scene he always requested: the next morning in the cafeteria when Iruka had stopped by, seeming both contrite and pissed off at the same time. Purposefully not looking at Kakashi, the engineer had explained he’d given _Lightning Cutter_ a couple of new upgrades, just a few little things, nothing big, don’t get too excited. 

It had included the comfortable pilot-chair that Kakashi was currently relaxing in.

He didn’t feel the need to repress laughter in the solitude of his ship. Truthfully, Kakashi hadn’t imagined that he would be fighting with someone so low-ranked in the L.C.A. – and he certainly hadn’t considered he wouldn’t walk away the victor after the first round. Nonetheless, he found he enjoyed the feisty engineer; he even valued the man’s protective attitude over his former students. The three of them needed more paternal love, anyway. It certainly wasn’t going to come from Kakashi: he would rather send them into active asteroid fields to see what they would do during the chaos than customize the inside of their ships. 

Secretly, though, wow – Kakashi loved his new chair. He really did. 

Minato hadn’t been kind in that way with him, and neither had his father. Instead, both men had spent their time encouraging Kakashi to not be a flippant asshole to everyone around him. Even when he had his own team, Obito and Rin had made excellent flank-guards, but they hadn’t spent much time inside each other’s ships. They had commented very little on his utilitarian style inside his machine. And… while Maito Gai was an indisputably amazing front-guard, he was way too hands-on and flashy to ever let inside _Lightning Cutter_. 

Even Gai’s suite inside Konoha was visually dazzling. It scared Kakashi every time he visited. 

How could a man be an absolute peacock and Konoha’s best front-guard at the same time?

He’d only seen inside Iruka’s room once. It was when Team Seven returned from their first off-sector non-military mission. Kakashi’s Sharingan detailed the time (3:42 A.M.) and the number of warm bodies on Konoha (1092), including the number asleep (912) and those injured in the Med Bay (35). As expected, Iruka was off work in his basement-level bachelor suite… but he wasn’t totally asleep, so Kakashi had slunk by with slouched shoulders and lazily informed him that Team Seven had survived their first big mission. They had successfully completed the search-and-rescue of _Miss Kitty_ , a feline-shaped Konoha drone that had floated too far away from the mothership. They hadn’t gotten a single scratch on their individual ships. And, hey, Sasuke had waited until they were in the docking bay before he punched Naruto in the face, isn’t that great?

With his hair a wild mess and his absurd pajamas wrinkled to hell, Iruka had stared at him so blearily that Kakashi felt suddenly very stupid for stopping by.

But then Iruka laughed and laughed until he doubled over, clutching his stomach. It had made Kakashi flush entirely red; he regretted not covering his Sharingan with its metal safeguard. Still unable to control what the device recorded when it didn’t have on its shield, he’d captured Iruka’s unrestrained entertainment for the permanent memory banks. Damn, if it wasn’t embarrassing, being laughed at as a new team captain by a lowly engineer!

Oh, but, a second later, Kakashi was so terribly, thoroughly pleased Obito had given him the Sharingan, because Iruka had looked up at Kakashi through dark eyelashes and smiled so warmly at him that sometimes –

Well, sometimes, in the dumbest, worst dog-fights, he unthinkingly made the Sharingan bring up the memory of Iruka’s smile to remind himself that he needed to safely make it back to Konoha.

Not that they had something! There was nothing between the two of them!

But, damn, that was a truly joyful smile, and it had been for him, just for him. No fucking wonder his students were so motivated to succeed! If Kakashi could get Iruka to smile at him like that again, just one time! well – he could win a whole war for Konoha.

He could probably save the entire galaxy if Iruka gave him another smile.

The L.C.A. recovery unit abruptly appeared on screen and spoke to him on the com in their half-robotic scripted manner. He sent off a lazy digital salute and headed back to Konoha at a slow, incapacitated pace. The mothership was presently meandering towards a new location closer to allied forces. _Lightning Cutter_ had no issue tracking the massive ship even with its top-notch shields, another blessing from his early days when he’d stolen the mechanics of every other mothership he’d encountered. Of course, he’d outfitted Team Seven with the same system since his underdogs were growing up to be bigger and bolder pups. 

Everything was on automatic, but Kakashi kept both his regular eye and Sharingan-enhanced one trained on the instruments on his flight panel. He’d sustained a number of heavy blows by Zabuza and his fledgling flank-guard: _Lightning Cutter_ was leaking light fuel, and her front window had a new unexciting crack down the middle. While he hadn’t admitted it to the kids or the L.C.A. recovery unit, Kakashi was also suffering from overuse of the Sharingan. His head felt stuffed like he’d been forcing marshmallows into his mouth and they’d all relocated up to his skull.

Neither the confusion nor the pain stopped him from thinking about Iruka Umino while _Lightning Cutter_ brokenly flew back to Konoha. 

Kakashi honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he made the Sharingan recall Iruka’s late-night smile and crazy bed-hair and dorky star-decorated P.J.s when he died one day in a dog-fight.

Not that Kakashi wanted to face death any time soon. Team Seven was still young: they needed about a million more missions before Kakashi allowed them out in the galaxy on their own without his expertise. But he knew he’d eventually die for Konoha. All of her finest pilots understood that brutal truth the moment they signed up to fly ships for her. Konoha had innumerable enemies as she floated through space. Kakashi had long ago sworn to defend her and all those aboard her against adversaries new and old. He’d seen the consequences of favoring individuals over the collective when his father had – … so… Kakashi would follow the rules, the ones set forth for those who served Konoha as pilots in her specialized fighter ships. Surprisingly, the number of Konoha pilots now included three teenagers under his command. 

He finally had to admit it:

 _Lightning Cutter_ was losing oxygen fast. She’d had the same problem within the first few minutes of fighting on several other occasions; it was a common issue because of her design. It often led Kakashi to rely on his helmet’s limited circulation even while inside his ship. He shrugged it off as usual. If the kids had been with him, he’d be more concerned, but, alone once again, Kakashi merely watched the oxygen levels drop and drop.

It wasn’t great that his helmet had sustained damage, too. The protective casing had been broken a bit.

It also didn’t help that the crack in _Lightning Cutter’s_ window was getting larger.

Well, damn. 

His Sharingan cheerfully – in full dark humor mode – showed him Iruka’s smile.

Kakashi laughed at the device’s impulse, but his laughter sounded bitter, even to him. 

Oops. 

C’mon, let’s get back to Konoha. Iruka might be waiting for you. That could happen. 

It really might happen.

Wouldn’t it be nice if that happened?

So he pushed _Lightning Cutter_ a little harder, making the ship creak and groan, but Konoha was soon into virtual view, and Kakashi’s crackling nerves settled back down as he guided his exhausted machine into the docking bay. He would need a long cold shower. He would need six thousand calories and enough alcohol to down Maito Gai. He would need to check his stupid heart monitor.

His medical display had started shrieking mid-fight when Zabuza’s protégé flank-guard had reappeared and blown Sasuke off-course - and Naruto had flown into a fury – and Sakura had nearly broken down into girlish tears.

But they’d won somehow. 

They had survived their first real mission.

As _Lightning Cutter_ adjusted to Konoha’s internal atmosphere, Kakashi removed his helmet, noting its battered paneling, and rubbed at the electronic cords embedded in his face. Ugh, it was sorer than usual… He brought down his headband, fixing the flat steel panel over the Sharingan so he could keep it deactivated while walking about the ship. The sweet relief was immediate; Kakashi almost winced at how good it felt. He was certainly talented with the Sharingan, but he knew he could push things too far in defense of his friends, his teammates, his subordinates. 

Not that he should: the collective was more important.

… Still… he wouldn’t abandon the kids. Not now, not ever.

But, hey! Don’t worry about that! The kids had already made it back safe. 

Who cares about a little extra brain damage? It’s not a big deal if things work out for everyone else.

After getting in a good solid stretch, Kakashi eased himself out of his perfect pilot-chair and started climbing down the side of _Lighting Cutter_. As he did so, he had to admit he’d cut it quite close: his ship had taken more damage than the assessment system indicated. He carefully avoided an open gash in her stomach while making a face to himself. That would be a real bitch to fix! He had already been afraid of Iruka’s reaction, but now... This was going to be bad. He was going to leave _Lightning Cutter_ in the bay and lock his suite door and not answer for a few days, that would probably work, he could avoid a nasty scolding and furious tears and –

“Kakashi? Are you coming down?”

He froze… and then turned his head ever so slightly.

Even though it was definitely not Iruka Umino’s work shift, it being 2:12 A.M. with almost all of Konoha asleep, the scarred engineer was undeniably standing in the docking bay. In fact, Iruka was staring up at him with such a concerned look that guilt swiftly swamped Kakashi. As a result, he dropped the rest of the way to the plate-metal floor, sinking right into a false slouch of dispassion and calm.

“Yo, Iruka,” he tried to answer, but his voice came out breathy and dark. It was hard to talk… Painful, even. It was raw fucking agony, actually.

Oh, the lack of oxygen.

Right. 

In fact, wow, his whole body sort of fucking hurt. The oxygen deprivation was worse than he initially thought. Wait, was Iruka even here? Was this impaired thinking from his brain missing so much oxygen? But why hallucinate Iruka? Because his Sharingan remembered that late night from a year ago? Because of Iruka’s sincere smile that one time?

Kakashi only realized he’d been staring when Iruka suddenly moved closer to him and forced up the sleeve of his blue flight suit, clamping down on his wrist. Now he was staring down at Iruka: the man was obviously tired, he looked a bit frazzled, wonder why…? And what was with this weird grappling hold on his wrist? … was Iruka checking his pulse? 

Iruka’s head was down; he looked deeply contemplative. His hair was ready like he was about to go to work and repair Konoha’s fighter ships. Looking at him now, Kakashi found he missed the sight of Iruka’s messy bed-hair. It had made him seem less intimidating, more accessible. Like how Iruka was with the kids – comfortable, friendly, carefree…

“Sasuke said you hurt yourself during the fight,” Iruka declared, still looking down at the floor and holding onto tight to Kakashi’s right wrist. “I didn’t think he meant you were oxygen deprived.”

Feeling more than a little scrambled, Kakashi asked slowly, “You aren’t here for my ship?”

He was not expecting Iruka to shoot him the nastiest look he’d encountered in a long time. Feeling abashed, Kakashi ducked his head, but that only made him dizzy. Before he could stop himself, he tilted forward into the other man, apparently already rather off-balance. 

Yet, ever the source of stability, Iruka caught him by grabbing his shoulders and then set him upright. He was shaking his head; he seemed especially displeased with what he was seeing. 

“Come on,” the engineer said, sounding oddly fed up. “We’re going to my suite.”

Then Iruka did something Kakashi had seen him do with his students: he slung a strong arm around Kakashi’s waist and began walking forward with him, forcing Kakashi to move in tandem. It was so automatic for the Basics teacher that it was difficult to protest the action. Instinctively Kakashi found himself stepping in perfect military parallel with Iruka as if he’d already done it with the man a thousand times before. 

He certainly had not! He was still trying to figure out what the fuck was happening here!

Iruka Umino was in the docking bay outside of his work shift… waiting for Kakashi? Because Sasuke had told him about Kakashi’s injuries? Surely Sasuke hadn’t noticed the impact of Zabuza’s Carver Knife Blast on _Lightning Cutter_. Admittedly, Zabuza had rocked Kakashi’s ship, sent her in panic mode, but he’d regained her controls, even if it had cost him the top panel of his helmet. … Could Sasuke have realized how badly he’d been hit?

Damn, Iruka had a strong grip! Glancing down at the engineer, Kakashi allowed himself to be impressed with the other man’s hearty muscles and firm hold on him. He was almost tempted to pretend to faint to see what Iruka might do, but the thought made him nauseous. He wanted to sit down again… not lay out flat on the cold faux-wood corridor floor.

Ah, Iruka’s bachelor suite. It was only a couple hundred feet from the docking bay. Ever so vigilant, Iruka Umino, taking his job so seriously, teaching little pups to be good engineers and treat their ships good – or well? – treat their ships well? treat their ships good? what’s the correct grammar for that?

Oh, wow. The inside of Iruka’s suite was bigger than Kakashi had expected. 

It occurred to Kakashi he was staring again when Iruka slipped his arm from Kakashi’s waist and then pushed him towards the attached bathroom. The engineer was efficiently multi-tasking as he directed Kakashi towards the shower stall. He picked up a spare towel and a standard-issue olive-green jumpsuit along the way. He stepped around Kakashi to turn on the shower and hung the garment on a waiting rack along with a maroon-red mechanic’s bandana. 

Iruka’s gaze was mysteriously forceful as he enunciated very clearly:

“Take a shower. If you start to feel sick, say something.” 

As if Kakashi was stupid! He knew how to take a shower. And he definitely wasn’t sick. 

He was Kakashi of the Sharingan!

He started to undress, and Iruka turned bright red and left the bathroom. Silly man. Plus, the shower was way too hot, Kakashi liked it cold after missions, something to remind him of his bare-bones existence and cool the sight of burning wreckage in his brain and Sharingan. He was pleased with the feel of Iruka’s freezing water on his bare skin: it was good, reassuring, relieving. He would have to take more showers in Iruka’s suite. His personal bathroom was mediocre, it always had been, but no need to call for repairs, don’t let anyone in his suite. 

Ahhh. What a nice towel, too! Very fluffy. It was sort of warm? Had Iruka warmed up the towel? What a mother hen. Who needs such excessive comfort? 

Not Kakashi. He was quite fine with cold showers and threadbare towels.

He spent a long time drying off and fluffing his hair back into shape. Not because it was really nice and pleasant, but because it had been a rough mission. He could admit that, at least to himself, here and now, safe and back in Konoha. It would have been bad if they had all died. Their first major off-sector mission and they burned alive in crushed metal because some renegade pilot and his fanatic protégé showed up out of nowhere.

But, nah, he was good. The kids were good. They had survived. 

The jumpsuit was loose, a bit oversized. It seemed big even for Iruka. Maybe it was a spare to sleep in when things were tumultuous, and the engineer had to take naps when and where he could? Efficient man. Smart, efficient, hard-working man.

Kakashi leaned against the bathroom door, looking out across Iruka’s suite at the man himself. He vaguely understood he was making a black silhouette in the white-yellow fluorescent lighting of the bathroom. He had crossed his arms as he rested his head on the doorframe. He had been amused with Iruka’s kindly silent offering of a bandana to cover his face. Without his flight suit and its built-in high-neck, his face would have been exposed, but Iruka had already calculated appropriately, leaving out one of the rags that he wore when repairing ships. 

The improvised mask was soft against Kakashi’s skin. It smelled like lavender. 

What a nice smell.

Very reassuring.

Iruka was sitting on the end of his bed, staring back at Kakashi. He’d changed out of his green-colored engineering jumpsuit and was now wearing a white shirt and a pair of grey slacks. Apparently, he had been waiting for Kakashi’s reappearance: Iruka visibly studied him while he stood in the bathroom doorway. It was interesting, watching the other man be so analytical. He was being diagnostic the same way he was with young students and with the ships. 

He was seeing where Kakashi was weakest. He was seeing if Kakashi was in need of repairs. 

As much as Kakashi wanted to shrug off the unspoken suggestion, he had to admit that he was playing loose and fast with lucidity as he lingered in Iruka’s bachelor suite. 

Oxygen deprivation and a head injury after an adrenaline-soaked space battle…

Alright. So he wasn’t entirely well.

“Do you have anything to eat?” Kakashi wondered aloud. He stayed still as he asked. He was suddenly worried Iruka would bolt or kick him out. After all, he had been acting peculiar since leaving _Lightning Cutter_ , and Iruka had injured him once before.

But Iruka just nodded in response. “I do,” he replied easily as he pushed off the bed and walked over to the kitchenette. “Sakura said you like miso soup with eggplant.” He reached inside the food-mat unit, held down the button for five seconds, then lifted out a rather sizable white bowl with two hands. 

Kakashi felt extraordinarily god-like as he sat down at the suite’s half-table and Iruka presented him with a truly magnificent meal. 

It was exceptionally perplexing to see his favorite food in Iruka’s bachelor suite. The soup was simple but persuasive: a strong-smelling miso soup with chopped eggplant and green onion. He normally would have demanded meat from the vending machines, but there was something mouth-watering about the garlic-ginger miso broth in front of him. 

He was already halfway finished with the soup when it occurred to him that both Sasuke and Sakura had narked on him.

Kakashi glanced up with one eye, his Sharingan fully shielded after the mission. He realized that without thinking he’d lowered the bandana when he started eating, but he saw Iruka wasn’t looking at him at all. Instead, the engineer was laying on his back, deliberately surveying the sheet-metal ceiling instead of ogling Kakashi’s bare face. His arms were behind his head, and he’d crossed his feet at his ankles.

Huh. Such a gentleman.

“What else did the little traitors tell you?” Kakashi drawled in a dry tone. 

Without looking his way, Iruka answered, sounding completely comfortable, “Naruto said you were all alone in the world.” He paused, seeming a bit reflective, and then added more quietly, “Like how he used to be before he met me and joined your team.”

The shower hadn’t been cold at all compared to the chill that flew through Kakashi. He felt filled with the same frost plague that had laid waste to seven whole planets years ago. 

There was no real way to respond without embarrassing himself either through a noisy rejection of the idea or a soft vulnerable admission of its truth. 

So Kakashi remained absolutely silent as he finished the miso soup.

He carefully put away the bowl and spoon before turning back around. He considered Iruka: the engineer was wide-awake and easily relaxing in bed at 4:04 A.M. Kakashi knew that Iruka kept first shift hours, which meant he’d be working in less than four hours, unless…

“You called in sick.”

Iruka slanted a long, unreadable look his way. “Yeah, I did,” he replied simply.

Then the fascinating – feisty – fussy man patted the bed, and Kakashi suddenly recognized there was enough space for his own body in that exact spot. All of him. Sleeping beside Iruka Umino. After a mission. When he normally would have taken a cold shower, eaten vending machine food, and passed out in his terrible tiny bed by himself.

He wasn’t sure the last time he’d slept overnight beside someone. 

His mother maybe? When he was a baby?

Ignoring the confused thoughts swirling about his head, Kakashi laid down beside the unusually quiet engineer. He slid under the sheets the same time Iruka did. They were careful not to touch each other: the bed wasn’t so big that they could avoid it throughout the night, but damn if Kakashi wasn’t going to try. He had pulled his bandana back up; he’d have to sleep wearing his specialized metal-shield headband since the Sharingan ached so badly.

Iruka went through the hand motions to get his suite A.I. to turn off the lights, flick on the fan system, and flutter the air with lavender and atomized melatonin. 

It was an intricate and delicate movement. It didn’t seem like Iruka at all.

Iruka had always seemed so strong and forward. He was forceful and obvious.

Kakashi blamed his head injury for his sudden epiphany that he’d been very wrong about Iruka Umino. To avoid it, he abruptly demanded his body shut-the-fuck-up-and-go-straight-to-sleep. 

But his brain was jumbled, and his Sharingan was on the fritz, and Kakashi was tired in a hundred thousand different ways. So, instead of dystopian dreams of electric sheep, he stood sentry in Konoha’s docking bay as a six-year-old, waiting for his father to come home. But he was late, he was really late, and then he was back, and so were his two flank-guards, and yet everyone was acting dark and livid, and his father went up to the highest level of Konoha to see the leading Hokage without first eating dinner with Kakashi. So he sat alone in their father-son suite, picking at skewers of pork and apple, waiting again, always waiting. 

And then it was Obito he was waiting for, he was waiting for Obito to laugh and say that _Fireball_ wasn’t going to become her name, he was waiting for Obito to play dog-fight with him and get angry on the coms and be stupid about Rin’s attention. But _Fireball_ was half-crushed during the fight with Konoha’s foes; her side window had exploded outwards. Kakashi could actually see Obito in his flight suit, struggling with his helmet, yanking out his Sharingan, forcing it in their shared team port, and then he was smashing the hyperspeed display, and he was gone into the black of space, into the billions of twinkling stars.

Kakashi sat up choking on his past.

His hand went to his throat, trying to dislodge the problem, but there wasn’t anything there – nothing but the final seconds of his dead father and his dead friend.

Sweeping his fingers across his face, Kakashi sighed, closing his one natural eye. Okay. It’s okay. He’d take another cold shower, grab some meaty ramen from the vending machine, read the latest uploaded chapter of _Icha Icha_ , and –

Holy shit. This wasn’t his suite.

It wasn’t the Med Bay, either! Where the fuck –

Oh. Oh damn. Iruka Umino.

The engineer was unconscious, utterly unconscious. He hadn’t moved a bit with Kakashi’s pained awakening. His back was to Kakashi, he was facing the huge metal side wall. The bedsheets were tangled down at his waist like he’d gotten hot and shoved them away in anger. He must have pulled out his tie because his brown hair was in real disarray and puffy in several places. His shirt had ridden up somewhat, revealing his crazily muscular abdomen, all that brown skin on fine display in the soft low lightning of… of Iruka’s bachelor suite.

He wasn’t thinking clearly, not so soon after his nightmare, but Kakashi was moving regardless. He leaned over the other man and, very quietly, asked into the lavender-scented air, “Iruka…?”

A significant part of him didn’t expect the engineer to wake up. He certainly hadn’t stirred when Kakashi had shot up out of bed a moment ago.

Yet Iruka must have heard his name through the dreamy fog. He roused slightly, raising his shoulders like a cat coming out of a nap, and turned partially to look over at Kakashi. Through his sleepiness, Iruka appeared soft and perplexed. His voice sounded much the same.

“… kashi?”

No one had called him _that_ before. It made Kakashi flush red, totally red. He was alarmed by how heated his face became within a single second. He had literally no ability to respond; he just ended up staring down at Iruka with one wide eye and a surprised expression.

Iruka rubbed at his face and tried again, sounding measurably more awake this time.

“Do you need anything?” the engineer mumbled as he reviewed Kakashi’s mostly-hidden features. He corrected himself less than a second later, saying instead, “What do you need?”

But there was no way in hell that Kakashi could muster up a response. He was suddenly confronting the reality that eluded him earlier: Iruka Umino, his sort-of rival, the man who’d won over three of the weirdest students in Konoha, the engineer who’d kneed him in front of a third of the mothership, had _invited him to bed._ He was in Iruka’s bed. Kakashi had only wanted one more smile before he died – and instead he was in the man’s bed.

Iruka turned over to face him entirely. He was looking more awake now; he seemed a bit amused with whatever he was reading on Kakashi’s face. 

And… and the engineer smiled at him, a variation of the one from last time. This smile was warmer and sweeter, but it was still meant just for him, just for Kakashi.

Iruka asked him again, “What is it?” Bizarrely, he seemed tickled with Kakashi’s nonresponse rather than irritated or frustrated with him. After another moment of silence, his hand drifted upwards and prodded Kakashi once in the chest. “You can tell me.”

“You should smile more,” Kakashi suddenly said. He swallowed down his fears and stayed very still. After all, Iruka could do a lot of damage if he wasn’t watched carefully.

But the engineer’s eyebrows only rose on his forehead. Then his smile grew; he looked pleased, very pleased. His hand slipped between them, spreading his fingers across the bedsheets. 

Kakashi watched as a dark blush appeared through Iruka’s facial scar. 

The man was almost inaudible when he murmured, looking shyly up at Kakashi, “I haven’t seen your smile.”

It seemed perfectly natural to pull down the bandana to show Iruka his face. It was only a few seconds later, when the engineer was running his hot gaze over Kakashi’s exposed features, that Kakashi realized he’d done something very abnormal. He realized better now he must be blushing, too. There was no way all this heat burning his neck and face was some unknown space sickness: this was embarrassment, this was being flustered in front of a crush. He knew his metal-stitched headband was still covering a large portion of his face, screening his Sharingan, but this was definitely the most he’d shown anyone in a long, long time. 

Iruka seemed to like what he saw.

His interest was made abundantly clear as Iruka started to give him what _Icha Icha_ called “bedroom eyes” – the half-lidded, lusty look of an alien princess who desperately wanted the hero’s kiss. 

And who was Kakashi to deny such a look!

He was particularly thrilled when Iruka met him halfway: that was good, he wasn’t very interested in being the sole aggressor, especially not with the spirited engineer. 

Damn, kissing Iruka was nice, really nice. He himself wasn’t exceptionally skilled at kissing, but apparently Iruka had some experience as he led the way with pure energy. Fortunately, Kakashi knew enough to keep kissing and avoid falling apart under Iruka’s surprisingly firm hands on his shoulders. But he was being impertinent, he was taking risks: Kakashi didn’t think about his safety at all as he let his hand wander down Iruka’s side, shamelessly groping the muscles he’d seen a minute earlier. Underneath Kakashi’s bare fingers, Iruka squirmed, becoming suddenly restless. He pulled away with a gasp and looked up at Kakashi with truly wanting but sorry eyes.

“We’re not going to do anything serious,” Iruka said so very firmly it hurt a little. “You need time to recover. Straining your body will not help.”

“What about straining _your_ body?” Kakashi immediately retorted as his fingertips dragged over the lovely cut of Iruka’s pelvis before the start of the man’s slacks. He was considering pulling off the Sharingan’s safeguard: he wanted everything before him to be in his memory banks for all time. 

He nearly committed the act when Iruka turned even redder, his eyes going wide at Kakashi’s suggestion. The engineer stuttered in his response, saying ineffectively, “That’s not necessary – and I don’t think it’ll help you, either.”

“Won’t it?” Kakashi asked, irrepressibly delighted by the idea. 

He was dancing every closer to what interested him very much… but then Iruka caught his wrist and stopped him from reaching down any further. The other man was disheveled and breathless: it was a seriously appealing look on him. 

But, then again…

Kakashi had only a second before pain swept over him, and he winced, pulling his hand out of Iruka’s. He palmed the metal over the Sharingan, trying to steady the dysfunctional device. Shit, he really had overused it, and, damn, what a horrible time for it to act up. He was so close to –

Iruka’s lips were an unexpected wonder: the engineer was kissing the back of his hand, the one over his Sharingan. Even though Kakashi’s blush had died down, it now returned full force. His unaltered eye focused on the other man, only to find him looking truly worried.

For him? Iruka was worried for him?

“It’s fine,” Kakashi said, lying through his teeth. He was ashamed to be seen so weak. People weren’t supposed to see him like this, not his father, not his teammates, not his new team. And here he was, interrupting his own fantasy, by being pathetic and frail. 

But Iruka had the sort of courage that could make light fuel burn brighter. 

The engineer stayed close as he asked in a low voice, “Do you want me to look at it?”

What. Absolutely not. You don’t know a thing about Sharingans. You’re a low-ranking repairman! Don’t go around pretending you can fix the finest device in the galaxy!

Kakashi shook off his instant repulsion. He was relieved he hadn’t said anything aloud, he would have sounded like a real asshole. His shame was multiplying, his physical pain was worsening: there was no use in being pissed with Iruka, he was just trying to help. He was wrong, of course, but he was –

“I used to fix Sasuke’s when he was younger.”

“You did what?”

Kakashi dropped his hand in surprise, and Iruka took advantage like he was a fighter pilot. He had the headband up and out of the way and his fingers pressed into the side of the Sharingan’s wires at the corner of Kakashi’s eye – all within a second. It was an honestly violent struggle not to crack Iruka straight in the nose and grab his flight suit and haul ass home. He didn’t let anyone except the physicians in the Med Bay deal with his Sharingan. Even then, he was usually sedated as fuck, and he still ended up glowering at them with all the darkness of a black hole swallowing up space matter.

Iruka was humming to himself. His eyes were fixed on the exposed electronic cords of the Sharingan, the ones that spread outwards from Kakashi’s eye like fracture lines on a frozen lake. Iruka was so engrossed with his new task that he didn’t seem to notice how Kakashi was both staring at him and starting to panic.

But then the engineer whispered, “Give me another second, you’ve got a loose wire.”

Oh, Iruka had noticed his discomfort. Ugh. Kakashi almost physically wilted. How embarrassing. 

Then his Sharingan made a little reboot noise in his skull. His optic nerve twitched in response. He involuntarily shook his head once – then twice – and the device whirred for a long second, finally resuming full function. 

Automatically, it pulled up the last thing Kakashi requested: Iruka’s smile from a year ago.

He felt even more flustered than he had been a few minutes prior when they were kissing. 

Not that Iruka seemed to mind: now he was grinning from ear to ear, unaware of what Kakashi was seeing beyond him in bed. “Did it work?” he asked in excitement. He sounded like a kid seeing his first neutron star! “Yours is much more complicated than Sasuke’s! It’s so interesting. I’d love to take a better look at it.” Iruka’s exhilaration was bubbling over in all directions, and he sat up and leaned back against the metal wall. All of a sudden, he confessed, still wildly grinning, “You’re just amazing! And so handsome, too. It’s almost not fair.” 

The engineer laughed, bringing up his hand to sweep back his hair, all while Kakashi stared at him, feeling like he’d been body-dropped to the floor.

“You like me,” Kakashi suddenly realized aloud.

Iruka’s grin became a sultry smile – and it was directed only at him.

“I do,” he replied, wholehearted and unafraid. Then Iruka pushed Kakashi’s jumpsuit-clad thigh with his foot and announced without any hesitation, “You like me, too.”

Damn. He was right. 

That made sense: why request a person’s smile when you’re dying unless you like them?

… and why take care of an oxygen-dumb fighter pilot with no social skills unless you like them?

“Can we go on a date?” Kakashi asked on crazy human impulse. He felt suddenly desperate, like if he didn’t inquire quick enough then this would all be revealed as a hallucination. Maybe he was actually dying way back in the distant sector? Maybe Zabuza’s attack had broken his window, maybe his brain was malfunctioning, maybe this was the end of things?

If this was really the end of things, then, well then –

“We’re going to date, and I’m going to kiss you again,” he said resolutely, and Iruka laughed at his blunt insistence but he was already moving forward into the kiss. 

Without saying anything else, Iruka wrapped his strong arms around Kakashi and held him as they kissed. They stayed close together as Konoha flew steadily through space. They were still intimately intertwined when morning artificially occurred and the metal walls of Iruka’s suite flushed full of brilliant sunrise.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Doodles for 'The Electronic Memory of a Late-Night Smile' by decaf_kitty](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20272681) by [i-drive-a-nii-san (OftheValkyrie)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OftheValkyrie/pseuds/i-drive-a-nii-san)




End file.
